My godmother once gave me a solemn warning about boys: There is no such thing as "just a cup of coffee." She was right. Coffee is a cunning, baffling brew that has led political factions to battle; race is discussed through it; heartbreak has been stewed in it; and, much like my godmother cautioned me, many a passionate night has been launched with a single, delicious cup of coffee.

This week, NPR's Morning Edition is airing a series about the politics, science and economics of the drink. Coffee runs through the veins of Latin America. The variations on the very preparation of coffee are fantastic. You can go to Mexico and have a delicious cafe de olla (water, coffee beans, brown sugar and cinnamon are brought to boil in a mud vase); head over to Cuba and have a cafe cubano (sugar is added to the container into which the espresso will drip, allowing the espresso to mix with the sugar as it is brewed); and in Argentina, we are gastronomically committed to our culture of melancholy. We will make you una lagrima de cafe (which means "a teardrop" of coffee poured into a foaming cup of milk.

Having traveled throughout the continent, I've often expressed amazement at people who, given the rich variety of the drink, will seek out a Starbucks coffee in a place with as venerable a coffee tradition as Colombia or Mexico. But even this phenomenon speaks to the socioeconomic symbolism of coffee: Where you get yours and in what container you carry it signifies who you are, what you believe in and what you aspire to be.

Because coffee it is so ubiquitous on our continent, it is naturally a constant theme in music. It's often used as a misleadingly casual way to discuss sociopolitical realities: In the seemingly cute "A Falência do Café," Brazilian legend Gilberto Gil slams the landed Brazilian coffee aristocracy. In "Ay Mama Ines," legendary Cuban musician Bola de Nieve cleverly slips in a line indicative of black-white power dynamics in 1930s Cuba: "We come here to beg / that you let us sing and dance / Ay Mama Ines / All us black people drink coffee."

And, of course, coffee is also about sex: How could such a powerful brew, oscillating between jarring bitterness and a sweet high, not be? The iconic Gran Combo de Puerto Rico sings, "How inspired was the creator, when he made womankind / Oh, and how good that he told her to let herself be loved ... and he gave men sugar to put in the coffee" — a sweet description of how delicious a love between two people can be.

A worker collects coffee beans at a farm in Cuatro Esquinas on the outskirts of Diriamba, some 32 km south of Managua. Central America is one of main producers of the best Arabica Coffee.

My personal favorite song which mentions coffee is "Você não entende nada" and "Cotidiano" — actually two Brazilian tunes (by Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso, respectively) which are often performed together live. They are both songs that capture a nightmarish labyrinth of middle-class boredom. It is far easier to portray intense emotions like rage, lust and love than it is to accurately paint a picture of monotony, and the ability to do so is what makes Veloso and Buarque such talented lyricists. They focus in on — and obsess on — little, maddening details of an uneventful life.

Such as coffee, as Buarque sings, "When I get home, nothing consoles me / You set the table / I eat I eat I eat (I eat you) ... Bring me my coffee with sweetener / I drink it..." Under the Brazilian mellowness, a deep anxiety is boiling. But only on occasion is there the subtle threat that something will come unhinged in the routine — as when Buarque threatens with anthropophagy, or sex. To which Veloso adds, "Everyday, she does everything the same ... she says she is waiting for me for dinner / and she kisses me with a coffee mouth / All day long, I think of stopping / At noon, I think of saying 'no' / Then I think of what life to live / and I shut myself up with a mouthful of beans." Of course, neither of them will ever dare break the comfortable spell. Dinner will be served at the same time tomorrow, as will coffee.